


Forbidden Fruit

by hairycatlips



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Fenris and Hawke figure out fruit, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Tumblr Prompt, pomegranate, what is this even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:19:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5385716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hairycatlips/pseuds/hairycatlips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just a little thing from a prompt off the dragonagedrabbles tumblr!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Forbidden Fruit

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing from a prompt off the dragonagedrabbles tumblr!

There it lie. Plump and spherical, a beautiful hue, and perfectly ripe.

“So...what is it?” Hawke poked at the fruit, getting his face close enough so his eyes crossed a little. There was a little crown of spiky flesh that surrounded what he assumed to be a stem.

The exasperated snort that Fenris made was light. “It’s a pomegranate. Don’t they grow here?” 

Hawke shrugged, backing away from the red orb. “I’ve never seen one in my life, actually. _Pomegranate_ ,” he repeated, testing the word on his tongue. “What an odd name. So it’s a fruit?”

“I am...mostly certain.” 

“Well are we going to eat it?” 

“We shall,” Fenris sighed with a defeated look, “after I remember how to.”

Hawke raised his eyebrow, drawing his lips back in a sort of dubious grin. “You don’t know how to eat a fruit.” It was a statement, flat and not the least bit lacking in implied amusement. 

The comment garnered him a steely glare and a raised chin from his partner. 

“It is more difficult than you think. _You_ try, if you are so sure of yourself.” 

He would take on this challenge. He was the Champion of Kirkwall, damn it, and if his boyfriend wanted a _pomegranate_ \--his mind lingered on the word; so strange--then by Andraste, he’d give it to him. Taking out the dagger he always kept strapped to his waist, Hawke approached the fruit once more. “It doesn’t seem that hard--it’s almost like an apple.”

Fenris folded his arms across his chest and shifted his weight to one leg. Hawke loved when he did that; it made him look so starkly inhuman, like a marble statue in contrapposto. “Wait until you see the inside.” His voice was lowered, ominous, as if there was some unpleasant surprise once the fruit was incised. 

Hawke frowned, eyebrows raised for a dramatized fearful look. “Goodness, I hope nothing bites me...” He rolled the pomegranate around on its silver plate, searching for the best point of entry. If it was anything like a strawberry, you had to cut off the part with the stem. Or maybe it was more like an apple, as he’d thought before--maybe he could just slice it up into quarters or eighths. He’d try both, just to be sure. 

He turned the fruit on its side and bore down on the knife to slice off the top--and froze in surprise when a splash of juice shot onto his face.

“You planned this, didn’t you?” he grumbled, setting the knife down and turning to face Fenris. The elf was chuckling, now more relaxed. Hawke smiled in return just by default upon hearing him laugh; it was so rare. He’d gladly have pomegranate juice poured all over him if it evoked more of the gentle sound. 

Fenris used the sleeve of his tunic to wipe away some of the juice--except for the bit on Hawke’s lips. “I will admit to nothing,” he murmured, stretching up to kiss the remaining liquid away. Of course, it took several tries to get it all, which Hawke didn’t mind one bit.

“You wily thing.” Hawke nudged Fenris’ nose with his before kissing it softly and returning to the fruit at hand. Now that the top was off, he could examine the strange little bulbs within. They were obviously where the juice came from--plump and red, nestled into a white flesh. The flesh, in turn, did not look very appetizing. He supposed they would find out, anyway. Switching to the apple tactic, he started cutting along either side of each bundle of tiny fruits. There were six of them, he noted. The sections came apart rather easily. 

The tap of a bowl being set down disrupted Hawke’s examination of the odd food. Fenris grabbed one of the wedges and started popping out the red bulbs. _That makes sense._

“I thought you didn’t know how to eat one... More of your trickery,” Hawke said decidedly.

“I only remember them being served to Danarius in this way,” Fenris said with a twitch of his lips and an eyeroll at Hawke’s suspicion. Then his face settled into something Hawke had seen too many times. That hard, pained mask that set in whenever Danarius--or any of Fenris’ past, really--was brought up. “Only the very well-off could afford these fruits,” he explained, holding up a wedge and studying the way the light shone through the transparent bulbs. His eyes lingered for longer than they should have, as if he was refusing to look at anything else. “He gave me some once, but I have not eaten it since. I wanted to try it with you.”

Hawke set down the section of pomegranate he’d been about to deposit into the bowl and grabbed the elf around his middle. “I’m glad,” he said lowly, nuzzling where Fenris’ neck met his shoulder. He was glad for many things. Glad Danarius was dead, glad Fenris trusted him enough to divulge the mysteries of his past, glad they were replacing an experience that was shaded with awful circumstances. 

A small hum resounded in Fenris’ throat as he tilted his head to rest against Hawke’s. He picked up the bowl and held it up.   
“Have some. The seeds are fine to eat.”

The little fruits were sticky from the juice; Hawke picked up a few, avoiding the bits of white flesh that had sneaked in, and licked them off his hand. There was a tartness to them, but balanced nicely by how sweet they were. It reminded him of biting into a large blackberry, the way they popped and the seeds crunched against his teeth. “That’s...surprisingly good.”

“Worth the effort, I hope.” Fenris pulled away after planting a kiss to Hawke’s jaw. “But, ah...”

“What?”

“You’ve stained your shirt.”


End file.
